It is with great sadness that I heard the news today that the famous television artist Tony Hart has died... again!

For some strange reason the death of this much loved artist, who incidentally died six years ago in 2009, is trending all over Twitter today as tributes pour in. It just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the social networks, as if you need telling. But it does illustrate how anything, true or not, can spread like wildfire.

There have been several other famous Twitter cock-ups including people thinking Robbie Williams was dead on the news of Robin Williams' unfortunate demise.

After Nelson Mandela's death, scores of pictures of Morgan Freeman began circulating on Twitter along with messages of condolence. It is unclear if the tweets came from people who thought the pictures were of Mandela, or that Morgan Freeman had died. Freeman did of course play Mandela in 2009 film Invictus, but by that logic when the Queen passes away people will pay their respects with pictures of Helen Mirren.

One serious pitfall of hashtags is that they can often be read in multiple ways. Devastated Cher fans had to be forgiven for misinterpreting the hashtag that began circulating following news of Margaret Thatcher's death in 2013. #nowthatchersdead should read "now Thatcher's dead", but could also read "now that Cher's dead".

Other famous hashtag fails include Susan Boyle's #susanalbumparty...the mind boggles! How did they miss that one!

To be honest, this bizarre story has come as a bit of relief to me as I had no idea what I was going to do for today's blog. I am really busy, there's lots going on but everything is sort of in the 'middle of'. I am in the middle of painting pictures, I am in the middle of getting new work organised for 2015, I am in the middle of scanning and photographing artwork and so on.

One thing is for sure, Tony Hart helped many people realise their artistic talents and encouraged them in to a career in the arts. I was one of the many kids who sent off artwork to Blue Peter and Vision On. So, if anybody deserves two tributes then Tony is certainly one of them.